Fish Advisories may do More Harm Than Good
Reported October 21, 2005
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Researchers say government advisories warning women of childbearing age about mercury exposure from fish consumption could be doing a lot more harm than good.
Joshua Cohen, Ph.D., from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, says, “Fish are an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, which may protect against coronary heart disease and stroke and are thought to aid in the neurological development of unborn babies.”
Fish advisories often warn of mercury exposure from fish. It’s true — fish are a major source of mercury, a neurotoxin that could cause subtle developmental effects before birth, like the loss of a fraction of an IQ point. Because of these minor developmental effects, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency issue advisories warning women about mercury in fish.
Researchers did this study to evaluate the benefits of lower mercury exposure to pregnant women to see whether or not it justified the loss of omega-3 fatty acid consumption from fish.
Results of the study show if pregnant women ate the same amount of fish but simply replaced high-mercury fish with low-mercury fish, cognitive development benefits could be achieved without losing any nutritional value. The research also shows if pregnant women decreased their fish consumption by as little as one-sixth, the loss of those essential fatty acids during pregnancy would reduce the nutritional benefit by 80 percent. A previous study showed fish consumption among pregnant women was reduced by one-sixth following a 2001 government advisory on mercury levels in fish.
Researchers also found if people not intending to get pregnant increased their fish consumption, the risk for stroke and heart disease would be substantially decreased.
Cohen says there’s no way to really know what the impact of fish advisories on the public will be. He says: “Depending on how the population reacts, that impact could very well be negative. Before the government issues advisories, it needs to gather data on how people actually will react, how those changes in behavior will influence nutrient intake and exposure to contaminants and how those changes in intake and exposure will translate into changes in health.”
